They travel at very high speed. Escorted by police cars, they race through the flat Frisian landscape while the sun slowly rises. The ferry is waiting for them, temporarily closed to the public, and she can feel them bounce on board. Wishes she could open the door and climb out into the fresh sea air. Every part of her body longs to get away from the nausea and the reminders of the sticky chicken salad that keep pushing up through her oesophagus at frequent intervals, if only for the few minutes it takes them to cross. But she stays where she is.

And with Luna’s hand in hers, she does her best to forget about the stench emanating from the filthy dress under the orange blanket.

*

It’s quarter past five when they reach Thysted Hospital. Some of the claw-like desperation subsided after the doctor gave Luna an injection in the ambulance, but she doesn’t let go until the stretcher is rolled into the exam room.

‘I’ll be right outside,’ Karen says before the door closes. ‘Do you want me to call Leo?’

A weak nod.

So she calls him.

Chapter 62

62

Leo had called from the hospital’s front desk just thirty minutes later, but it had taken Karen another ten minutes to convince the staff he should be let into the room where Luna, clean now and with no physical injuries, is recovering with two guards posted outside the door.

She doesn’t know yet that her son is lying unconscious in the same building, three floors above her head, Karen muses as she walks out through the revolving doors and continues towards the car park.

According to the doctor she spoke to, Billy Formby’s condition is unchanged, and he’s still sedated. They will attempt to reduce the sedation tomorrow. No one knows if he’s going to wake up or whether his brain will work if he does. No one can say for sure if he is going to live or die.

I wonder which would be better, Karen thinks to herself.

Right before she closed the door behind her, Luna, now with Leo’s hand in hers, had looked at her with a wan smile and said:

‘Thank you.’

Whether for rescuing her or bringing Leo was unclear. It doesn’t matter anymore. She’s too tired to care. It’s past six in the morning and she has had three hours of sleep over the past two nights. Three hours of restless, fitful slumber with images of a crashed Volkswagen flashing before her eyes. She had just been concerned about Billy then, unaware Luna was still in the country. That she was tied up in some fucking barracks on Frisel.

She’s certainly still bloody here.